Adding to the ridership doubts is the fact thatCalifornia’s cities, likeFlorida’s, are sprawling.
Without a car, it’s not easy to get from one place to the next. The Reason Foundation report notes
That ‘the San Francisco urban (urbanized) area’s transit market share is 3.8%, Los Angeles is 1.6%,San Diego 1.2%,San Jose 0.8% and Sacramento 0.7%,’ which means that “the overwhelming majority of HSR trips are likely to require a car at one or both ends to complete the trip in a reasonable time and with reasonable comfort..”
Other setbacks came in January, when the California Legislative Analyst’s Office, the legislature’s nonpartisan watchdog, issued an evaluation of the High Speed Rail Authority’s most recent business plan. It found the following:
1.The rail plan offered an “uninformative timeline” and presented an “inconsistent order of events.”
2.The rail plan contained “no risk management strategy.”For instance, it addressed “the risk of incorrectly forecasted ridership with one sentence,” murkily noting that “the risk “would be mitigated by policies that continue to draw people to reside inCalifornia and encourage high-speed rail as an alternative mode of transportation .’”
3.The rail plan did not “provide any numerical ranges nor confidence intervals for projections contained in the plan (such as cost, revenues, or ridership).”Thus , “the risk of not realizing the forecasted ridership, revenues ,or costs is unknown